Celestia Forums

Are there any real high res shots of Pluto yet? I don't like the idea of a fake texture for a real planet..

The highest resolution images were taken in the mid '90s by the HST.
See http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/1996/09/ for black-and-white pictures.

See http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010319.html for a true-color image derived from mutual events between Pluto and Charon.

Hmm, Maybe someone should make the current Pluto texture with its "true" colors.

That's the whole issue. We don't know anything about its color or makeup. We will just have to waite until we get a probe there. I see no reason not to use the supplied texture. The creator of the texture adjusted it so that it has the same light and dark areas. So its not 100% inaccurate. Just maybe 90%.
Don.

Don,

Fortunately (?) you're wrong about the overall coloration, at any rate. It seems that Pluto is quite reddish. See the Web page I referenced. It includes a link to a published abstract about the research done to determine the colors.

I visited Selden's site and have to agree that Pluto appears brownish, if you trust the NASA researcher. If true (why not?), it seems an easy task to swing the color of the existing texture toward the brownish in a simple graphics program. Should we do that and put out a corrected default texture? If so, could someone do so? My graphics program is primitive.

Frank G

just make the current texture brownish...

Hi all,

Ok, here is a new colored Pluto. What do you think?
The alignment was also corrected by compareing with a real texture (hubble).



The Charon map was also modified a little bit .

Bye Jens

the look good

can we download them?

Hi,

I've also played with a new Pluto texture (seems that jim and I where thinkg the same ), so I created
another one derived from the old pluto. This current texture has a resolution of 4k

I was speaking of the monochrome pictures. The ones with simple light and dark areas. Not any color. I was not aware pluto had a red tint. News to me.

Jim, Praesepe,

I guess you are aware that your 4k "Pluto" is actually Ganymed...

I have also made a "Ganymed-Pluto" a long time ago, its still on the TextureFoundry...

Bye Fridger

Sure Fridger, as long as the default Pluto texture which comes with Celestia is based on Ganymede too but its recolorised in grey-dark tones ( it came from Hastings-Trew homepage ). I was not trying to make a "real" or "new" texture, only trying to give it more appropiate colours according to the hubble shots

Wow! These are nice guys. Keep up the good work!

Although this topic really belongs in the texture area now, I will throw in my pluto. One thing that I always wondered was why it seemed logical to use Ganymede as the base for the Pluto texture. Pluto is probably an object much more like Triton than Ganymede. So I used the Pluto/Ganymede texture, added a little color red to it and then took and modified a Triton texture to be more red. I then blended the textures together so as to keep the proper albedo between the light and dark areas. This was the result.


A new texture with a combination of Ganymede's and Triton's exotic terrains. Actually the textures blended quite nicely together. And of course if anyone wants it I will make it available. Its only at 2k. I will probably make a larger one if it seems there is a need.

Don.

Wow Don, looks fantastic. Is it really that red!? Amazing. Looks like a good candidate for the default texture to me

Oops,
That was the wrong texture. That was an earlier build. Here is the the texture as I meant it to be seen.

oooo... now *that* just looks perfect. any chance of making it available?

This one right here should go with Celestia, when can we get it?

I think pluto needs some ice caps since it is very very cold there.